As debuts go, Leslie-Anne Young’s first-ever race in a kayak could only be described as … inauspicious. “I was eight years old, and I was not exactly a prodigy,” laughs Young. “There were 14 boats in the race, and I finished… 14th! And I was last by a lot. The girl who finished 13th was way ahead of me. But you know what? I wasn’t upset, because I didn’t tip. I had tipped the boat all summer, and this time I didn’t. So even though I was last by a mile, I felt I had accomplished something.” Such an appraisal speaks to positivity and resilience, two traits that would come to define Leslie-Anne Young as both an athlete and a person. The story begins out of necessity in Sackville, Nova Scotia. Leslie-Anne was the youngest of four kids who lived with their single mom, Barbara. In the summers, Leslie-Anne needed to be looked after. Enter the Sackawa Canoe Club on First Lake…

“Mom said, ‘This is where you’re going for the summer,’” recalls Young. “It was inexpensive and close to home. And it became a great place for me to be. My Mom and siblings were so busy, so the kids and coaches at the club became like a second family to me. It quickly became where I wanted to be. I must have loved it because I even mopped the floors there, and I never did that at home!” Once she figured out how not to tip her kayak, things began to take off for Leslie-Anne. The very next summer, in the same sprint where she finished dead last a year before, she won by huge margin, or as she puts it, “by as much as I had lost the last one!” She was literally off to the races…

Coach Scott Logan remembers what a pleasure she was to coach. “She was such a team player and such a great influence off the water,” says Logan. “She was always so friendly and positive. But once you got on the water, that smiling face would turn to one of determination and grit. It’s amazing how she could bring such intensity to every workout.”However, as Leslie-Anne quickly progressed, the big challenge became actually getting TO the workout. Paddlers at her level were training twice a day on Lake Banook in Dartmouth. She lived in Lower Sackville. Enter her mother, Barbara…“Mom would get up at quarter to five, get breakfast for me, get herself ready for work, and we would leave at quarter after five to get to 6am practice,” recalls Young. “After practice, she’d get me back home, I’d get showered, she’d go to work and I’d get myself to school. I was 12 years old, and this was every single day!” 

The trouble was, the team practised after school as well, and Leslie-Anne’s Mom was still at work when school ended. This is where her signature resilience kicked in again. “I remember going to the teacher’s lunchroom at my school and asking if anyone could drive me to Dartmouth after school. There were three teachers that volunteered and took turns. Then, after practice, Mom would be there waiting with a hot supper wrapped in tea towels. I’d eat on the way home, and then she would sit with me while I did my homework, just to keep me motivated. This was every single night!”

Eventually, Leslie-Anne would come to train out of the Orenda Canoe Club in Lake Echo. She would work there with another future Olympian, Steve Giles. Giles remembers her as a “great training partner for me. I could always count on her to push me as hard as she could. She was an awesome team player and always did the things that made us proud to have her as part of the club and part of the team.” It was at Orenda where she would also begin working closely with coach Tony Hall. She credits him with recognizing her resilience, and strengthening it even further. “He would always say, ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life, you get to be the author and dictate what it looks like,’” remembers Young. “He would always stress the need for perseverance to not only get through a race, but to get through life.”

The lessons served Leslie-Anne well in a career that saw her win multiple gold medals at Canadian championships, silver at the 1991 Pan-Am Games, and take part in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and the 1994 World Championships (4th place finish). She was also named the 1994 Female Athlete of the Year by Sport Nova Scotia. She has since gone on to volunteer coach in the sport and to co-chair national, Pan-Am and World Championship Canoe/Kayak events.

Her message to the kids she has met along the way is one that stems from that first-ever race so long Ago… “If I can come dead last, and I mean DEAD last in my first race, and if I’m from a single-parent home, and if I’m from a small canoe club in Lower Sackville, then imagine what you can do – the sky’s the limit,” offers Young. “One bad race will never define you. It’s how you respond to that bad race that will.”

***Leslie-Anne Young was the second female kayaker from Nova Scotia to make the Canadian Olympic Team. The first was Ann Dodge in 1976.***

Written by Bruce Rainnie